I have decided to build a CNC machine in the summer vacation. As soon as I finish the last exams i’ll start building / hacking. For the moment I’m looking into building plans and cnc in general. At first I wanted to build a reprap using a kit, but my funds are limited, so it will be a three axis cnc router which hopefully will be able to act as an repstrap.

The project as it looks so far :
I ordered a set with steppers, motor-control and psu from ebay, and I’m waiting for it to arrive(The seller said 10-12 days, so maybe if I am lucky next week). It should be 1.7NM motors and a more or less “plug’n’play” set.

I intend to drive the motors using a old computer running linuxcnc. linuxcnc looks real neat, but might prove to be hard to set up.

The construction

This was the building plan that made me decide that this was a possible task. But there are some issues with the construction I don’t like, especially that it uses belts. They are hard to find and they are not cheap.

JGRO’s plans

It uses threaded rod instead of belts. And the overall construction looks simpler.

Materials

Although I do want to do “fabbing” using a extruder at first I think that there will be enough work for a couple of days getting the mechanics and electronics up and running. Just as there is a lot to learn about g-code and all sorts of 3dmodelling.

To begin with I want to cut using a dremel tool, maybe a more powerful spindle(?) to be able to cut wood – if I have enough power in the steppers.

You might ask what do you want to make / “fab” with a 3 axis cnc machine? I can come up with a lot of different small things like “coat hanger”, “coffee filter”, “PCBs” but I guess that it just boils down to: ” I think its a very fascinating technology and want to play with it”